Hosting websites allow users to share content from various sources with additional users having access to the hosting website. Hosting websites allow users to upload and store content as digitally encoded media files. Additional users can then access the hosting website, for example through a web browser application window, to playback the stored content directly on a computing device or transmit to and playback the content on another device. Example computing devices capable of accessing hosting websites and playing back content are personal computers, laptops, notepads, tablet computers, personal digital assistants, and mobile telephones. These devices may allow playback of content, for example, in an embedded display within a web browser application window, in a window of an application executed by the processor of the computing device or by any other suitable display means of the computing device.
In order to avoid charging users for sharing and playing back content, the operator of a hosting website can charge advertisers to display advertisements in proximity to the content being played back by a user. The operator can also overlay advertisements on the content by, for example, placing a textual advertisement over a portion of a video upon user selection of the video for playback. Advertisers measure success of web-based advertising using click-through rate (CTR), the number of times users click on the displayed advertisement divided by the number of times the advertisement is shown to users. Existing hosting website advertisement methods are becoming ineffective at achieving high CTR, as users have become accustomed to current methods and/or can ignore the advertisements based how they are delivered to the user.